Dispatch is a band that means so much to its fanbase for some many different yet equally important reasons.
To some, Dispatch is simply one of the greatest independent bands of all-time. These fans are the originals. The people who had the band on cassette tapes and CD’s, who heard them on college radio and they will never not take the opportunity to talk about the band’s “The Last Dispatch” farewell show which brought over 100,000 people from around the world to Boston.
To some fans, Dispatch are the purveyors of the best summertime beach bonfire sing-along anthems ever created. These fans have “The General” and “Here We Go” as a staple of their summer fun playlist, and you can be assured on some beach, somewhere in this world these fans are strumming their beat-up second hand acoustic guitars to the sweet sounds created by the band.
And to some, Dispatch is a source of civic inspiration. The band’s unflinching spirit of wearing their heart and their activism in their lyrics and in their actions as a band serve as a clarion call for people to get off the couch and do right in the world.
The band’s 9th studio album Yellow Jacket, is the perfect alchemy of all the great many things Dispatch means to their fans. Yellow Jacket is a record that beautifully blends the irresistibility of the band’s music with their daring propensity to defy genre, and their deep passion for social conscious messaging. The album is the work of a band that is able to keep their music firmly rooted in what has made them who they are but has absolutely no fear when it comes to experimentation and improvisation.
The record adheres to the band’s time-honored tradition of sharing their platform with fellow musicians — in this album’s case indie icon Ani DiFranco, Australian roots rock hero John Butler, Stefan Lessar and Rashawn Ross of Dave Matthews Band, and Rx Bandits frontman Matthew Embree (a long time Dispatch affiliate). These collaborations make for not only terrific songs, but make the album have a lived in, familial vibe.
Simply put, Yellow Jacket is a lay-up for one of the best albums of the years, and can easily be put into the conversation for one of the band’s full lengths … ever.
Yellow Jacket’s release is the impetus for Dispatch’s current marching sojourn across the country with a massive bill of amazing artists including the aforementioned Jon Butler, Philadelphia’s favorite son G. Love, surfer turned singer Donavon Frankenreiter, and the eclectic alto dup Illiterate Light. This all-star tour was described to us by Dispatch’s drummer and co-founding father Brad Corrigan as a true family affair, where a group of friends are hitting the road to play music together at the biggest summer sheds.
Recently, we caught up with Corrigan to discuss a great many things. The drummer spoke with us, with great warmth and pride, about Yellow Jacket, the collaborations that abound on the record, activism in the band’s music, and the heartbreaking yet inspiring story of his documentary Ileana’s Smile which is currently available on Prime Video and AppleTV+.
Brad, so cool to finally speak with you again after our first interview back in 2012 never made light of day due the audio file I had of the interview completely corrupting and was unusable. Before we kick off the interview officially with questions on the album, I wanted to really geek out about a performance I saw you guys do of “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine at Sea.Hear.Now a few years ago. It was absolutely awesome and maybe my favorite Rage cover ever.
Brad Corrigan: Oh man, I can’t believe someone remembers that. Yeah, it was something we always wanted to cover, but never really did then 15 years later here we were channeling all that energy. It’s like “It’s The End of the World As We Know It” the REM tune that we did with the O.A.R. guys. We always thought that would make such a great cover someday. But, you have to learn all the lyrics and then you’re doing it and trying so hard to remember all the lyrics every night. Covers are so fun. I also think it just keeps things interesting. We want to be risking and trying new stuff on stage not knowing how it’s gonna go instead of trying to produce the same show every night. That’s just never been an interest of ours.
I’ve been listening to the new album, Yellow Jacket, and it’s awesome. One thing that did strike me as interesting though is Matt Embree. He’s played with the band for a while now and lead vocals have always been Chad[wick Stokes] and you mixed in. So why, on this record, did you decide to switch him to being front and center and singing lead.
BC: He comes from Rx bandits. He’s the lead singer and lead guitar player of Rx. Every now and then you look at who you’re on stage with and you go, ‘Man, we’re surrounded with some heavyweights.’ This dude sings, and he’s got such a great voice.
We were a full band in the studio getting to record that way for the first time, and Embree, kind of soloing up his voice just felt really good to us. And you know JR [John “JR” Reilly – vocals, percussion] and [Mike] Sawitzke (vocals, guitar, brass, keys, etc) both sing … they sing their asses off. They have incredible voices, too and are stacked with backing vocals and unisons. But Embree … it’s just fun to hear a moment where you’re like, ‘Yeah, there’s another lead voice.’
BC:Â Nice! We recorded in two chunks. We recorded last September for five days, and then recorded in January for five days. The September sessions were reggae and ska just kind of like throwing back to our early days. There’s so much light in it, there’s so much space in it and air. I think that those songs are really fun. You hope they’re sticky. You don’t know how sticky they are until you finish and hear people responding to them.
The second half of the record went more rock and blues and folk and instrumental and really eclectic, but I think it was also a cool time. Naturally we’re just thinking about each song. There’s one song called “A Night Young” and it was like, ‘Oh, this [needs] a New Orleans funk kind of trumpet, I wonder … Oh, Rashawn!’ Our friend Rashawn Ross plays for Dave Matthews, so we reached out to him, and he [agreed]. We’re like, “Oh, my gosh! You’re a hero of ours!” So he played some trumpet and just ripped on that tune.
Then Ani DiFranco sang with us on “In the Street” — she’s one of our heroes from early on. What a powerful female voice to have with a song that’s inviting people to resist essentially what’s going on in the political landscape right now .. just that nonviolent strength of us coming together to be in the street to have each other’s backs.
Stefan Lessard, the bass player for Dave Matthews, played on a song called “The Darker Light.” That is inspired from a film that my nonprofit [Love Light + Melody] produced, called Ileana’s Smile. Our friend Tim Snyder who’s played violin with us a handful of times over the years did a string section for it. Jon Butler played guitar on “Trinket.” We just looked at every song and thought, “Who are the best of who we know that could all come and be a part of this collaborative work?”
When you record your earliest records I think it’s very ego-centered like ‘It’s just us, we just want as much of us as possible on the record.’ You’re trying to figure out your own voice and your own instruments. Now it’s more like we’re stronger together, so let’s get as many of our friends as we can to make music and the pursuit is art. You just want to make the best art you can. And what an honor to be able to reach out to someone like Rashawn and say, ‘Hey, dude, would you listen to this, and even consider playing on it.’
One thing that I have always loved about you guys is you make some of the most happy, infectious type of music and yet you never forget to talk about what’s happening right now in the political climate. How hard is that to strike the balance? Or is it part of your DNA at this point?
BC: There have been times where we’ve tried to strike a balance. And then there are also times and issues where you can’t be thinking about balance. You can only be thinking, ‘I have a moment to ask a question of a group of people.’ Like how honored are we that we get to think things on the mic? We get to imagine things and ask questions that we are not experts on; that we don’t have the answer for. But we sure want to bring these questions to light given where we are. The political climate that we’re in right now, this is not the time to try to strike a balance.
I feel like we’re dads, we’ve all got kids, and we’re thinking about the world that they’re gonna inherit. We’re thinking about decisions that we’re making right now as adults, and how that impacts these innocent beautiful spirits that we’re raising up. Way too many of our friends who are of a different skin color, a different background, or different zip code or different socioeconomic background, they feel vulnerable, they seem vulnerable, they are vulnerable to some really oppressive and horrific forces.
But … there is a balance. We’re gonna play a full tour this summer where the focus is on our music. We’re going from the tailgates in the parking lots ahead of time. We’re gonna invite local organizations to come and have a presence and have a real grassroots kind of sit-in feel in the parking lots ahead of the show. Whether it be a centering moment for the crowd to come together and just realize we belong to each other or highlighting a local speaker that can talk about what they’re doing in their respective city. We’re gonna have some tabling inside the venue and space to have some people speak hopefully from the stage too about just how important it is right now to realize what our shared humanity is, and how to have each other’s backs.
I’d like to talk about the documentary you made called Ileana’s Smile. As a father of a 10-year-old daughter, I definitely felt like someone was cutting onions in the office when I was reading the description of this documentary. I’d love for you to talk about this film, where people can view and the mission behind making the movie.Â
At this point Brad held up a photo of the subject of the documentary, Ileana. The photo is in the inspiration for the movie poster, which can be found below.
BC:Â That’s plenty of inspiration right there. This is the original portrait that I took. Anywhere I went where I had an opportunity to speak or share her story it’s been a remarkable thing to be able to do it. anyway. Let me give a little bit of context. Ileana’s Smile is a film that we’ve worked on for the last 11 years. It comes from a 20 year journey of working with kids and families that live in a trash dump [La Chureca trash dump] in Managua, Nicaragua.
It was the first time I’d ever seen that level of poverty where people would choose to live in trash. The reason they’re there is they can’t be evicted from that land because the government doesn’t have any interest in it. Right out their front door they’ve got trash fields filled with recyclables. So it’s a community or a township of folks that sift through the garbage every day and sell off what they find that’s of value just to make a life for themselves and for their kids.
But, as you can imagine, it is so epically toxic. It is so dark and so horrific to imagine anyone choosing to live in an environment like this and especially kids — the vast majority who are barefoot just running around.
[The impetus for the film came from when] I went to Nicaragua in 2005 to go to an orphanage and play guitar and play soccer, and also to play a concert for a youth rally. The Nicaraguan taxi driver, after a couple of days of ferrying us back and forth, was like ‘Yo, if you’re here for kids let me show you the ones that need it the most.’ And he took us into the landfill, and I just was like … I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t even understand where we were or how it was possible.
Over the next three or four years I went to Nicaragua probably 10 times a year. I was so impacted by that community and my friendship with the taxi driver named Bismark, who is still one of my best friends. Bismarck is the one that had the vision to open the gate for me, and then lots of my friends, and then tons of folks to come from all over the world to start creating music and sports and art and education opportunities for the kids that live in that trash dump. Ileana was one of the first kids that we met. She and her sister Mercedes just became family to us. We were doing an annual concert in the trash dump, and all kinds of stuff with the local organizations to serve the kids. And then Mercedes died, out of nowhere, and we found out that she had HIV Aids. Then a year and a half later, Ileana started showing signs of being sick. We were like ‘What is happening to these kids?
Ileana passed away in 2011, and in the midst of all of that we learned the hard way that child prostitution was a currency in the trash dump and drug addiction was a daily reality for the kids. [They were] huffing glue. There were families in the trash dump that would actually get the kids hooked on drugs intentionally so they would go work longer shifts to collect recyclables, to come back and then get another hit and then go work.
But, Ileana’s School of Hope is what remains, and it’s her legacy. We’ve been able to build a primary school to honor her. Now we’re expanding it into a high school. 200 kids [are attending] right now so the primary school is full. When we finish the high school campus we’ll be able to host 600 students. I just think of Ileana’s life cut short and Mercedes’ life cut short and now countless kids’ lives are extended and access is open for kids to be safe, to flourish and learn and dream and write their own stories.
I would do anything, anything to have Ileana and Mercedes back but being left with a spiritual tattoo of their lives on us and to still carry that smile, and now know that the film will carry them forward I just feel so honored to have met them, and really honored to to be a part of creating some legacy for them and for other kids in that neighborhood.
The film came out in May and is available on Apple TV and on Amazon and on YouTube. We’ve been waiting 11 plus years to release it and now it’s available worldwide in English speaking countries. Every penny that comes from people renting and buying the film goes directly to building Ileana School of Hope to sustain it long term. We really hope that this film will engage hearts around how important it is to take care of kids anywhere in the world, not just Nicaragua. We’ll sell and rent the movie enough times to build this school and move it into the future.
Thank you for sharing that story. For our readers, please check back in on Monday June 30 at 9 a.m. EST where we will have a full story on the film itself, Brad’s charity, the school and how you can watch this documentary. Sorry, Brad, I’m honestly trying to hold my tears back on this.
BC: Well, dude you’ve got a 10-year-old daughter and now I’m a dad too. I wasn’t a dad when I was doing this, but the dad energy in me at the time … I was so angry and so brokenhearted to see kids struggling like they were. Now that I have kids, it hits with way more weight. But I’m so grateful and looking forward to the day when I can bring my kids down to Nicaragua and see through them because they don’t see trash. They don’t see poverty. They don’t see wealth. They just see other eyes and laughter and joy, and they’ll just jump in and start playing. They don’t. They also don’t see a difference in culture. Kids are kids are the superheroes of our time. We’re the idiots. Adults are absolute idiots. We are such idiots.
Bill Bodkin: I mean, I can attest to that.
BC: Oh, gosh! If we could see the world through our kids’ eyes, we’d be all right.
No way to transition this smoothly, but I always like to end interviews with asking people what are five things you were stoked on for, whether it’s Dispatch or yourself for the rest of 2025.
BC: What are 5 things that I’m stoked on for the rest of 2025.
We’re doing a cruise for the first time in November as a band. We’re gonna do like a rock boat thing in November. So that’s a brand new experience where we’ll be making music for four days from a boat.
I really look forward to anywhere we’re stopping on the tour, but I’ll just say Red Rocks which is the second to last stop on the tour. That’s my old stomping grounds in Denver. To get to play Red Rocks with John Butler and G. and Donovan, I think, will be a really sacred stop.
It means a lot to me that my parents, who are way up in years, just moved up to be close to us and their grandkids here in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. So as soon as I get off tour I’ve got August, September, October to be in the summer vibes of lake and river hang time with my parents acting as grandparents.
And then the last thing … Jeez, man?
Brand new record?
BC: You know what I’m gonna say? October 3rd October 3rd is World Smile day. Our hope is now that the film is out between now and October 3rd we’re gonna try and build up as many relationships with as many reporters and artists and anyone to celebrate Ileana’s Smile in a unique way on October 3rd. So I don’t know what’s gonna happen yet, but I think that it feels to me like Ileana would be a great person for us to kind of trumpet blast on that day. What the power of a smile really looks like.
